]]>Online business or Ebusiness (electronic business) is primarily conducted through the internet that sells products, services, and advertising. It also includes providing technical or customer support online. People reach is via the internet that can be accessed by personal computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

The evolution of the internet has made it an essential part of everyday life. Its overwhelming influence has radically altered the way we work, play, do business and interact with each other. Ecommerce is, therefore, growing in an unprecedented manner since our geographical position no longer has any significance on our ability to converse with one another. Moreover, due to the dynamic nature of technologies, there are immense future opportunities for online business in terms of increasing sales and revenue.

The most prominent opportunity that the internet offers is it helps you start your own business with low cost. This business can be full time or part time, a small or big organization depending on your strength, scope and reach.

Examples of Online Businesses

Social media consultant

Web design & development

Professional freelancer

Affiliate marketing

Author or online writing

Remote technical support

App development

SEO consultant

Business coaching

Specialized retailer

Virtual consignment store

Handmade craft seller

Blog/ Magazine Publishing

Community Membership sites

Ecommerce store

Review sites

How to Start an Online Business

There are a number of steps to follow for successfully starting an online business:

Need of Integration of Online Business

In today’s modern digital age, there is a pressing need for the integration of online business in order to update websites as well as to regularly maintain social platforms. It is important to make sure your business is matching what your competitors are doing, while so many businesses are fighting for online space. You also need an integrated online approach for pushing conversion and establishing connections with your consumers.

Here are some reasons for integrating online business

For creating meaningful relationship with customers

To integrate CRM and social profile for more response

To make employees more efficient

Understand how to be social

To connect supply chain

For effective content distribution

For greater user experience

To create cohesive campaign

For extra marketing channels

Inexpensive advertising

One of the most important aspects of online business integration is to synchronize eCommerce activity and ERP system. So the eCommerce integration is the coordination between your website and accounting and inventory system. The integration enables the flow of bidirectional information between these two systems, which results in increased efficiency. For example, by integrating e-commerce and ERP system, your inventory level will automatically update in two places – at the backend when a product is sold, and at the frontend when a new product gets added to the inventory.

A fully integrated system also means inventory and pricing information is available to customers and staff in real time. Secondly, even if the demand increases, the need for additional staff is no longer required. Once the integration is achieved, your key data touchpoints like order, inventory, item, customer, and shipping/tracking and effectively communicated. Finally, a fully integrated system means you can deliver a better customer satisfaction, which leads to improved customer loyalty, followed by increased order size and sales.

Another aspect of system integration in your business is to achieve readiness in case of organizational changes. Your business must quickly respond to what is going on in your industry; whether there is a new offering from a competitor or there are changes in customers’ expectations. So integrating systems allows you to adapt to a changing environment, which in turn helps you remain competitive. System integration also leads to improved data accuracy. Since data is often used to make strategic decisions, it must be accurate and consistent. If in case your different departments get different data from your systems, it will lead to confusion and may cost you heavily.

Furthermore, system integration enables employees to achieve tasks faster, while without compromising quality. They can even access data regardless of their location or time of the day, thereby making them more productive. Also, enabling all the departments to share information seamlessly, you are encouraging collaboration and communication between your employees. This will boost visibility and transparency in your work culture.

How to Integrate Online Business

An online business requires a variety of applications that are enabled by the internet. These applications are – online marketplaces, customer relationship management, supply-chain management, procurement management, portals, enterprise resource planning, websites, e-commerce, etc. All these applications should be integrated with each other to make an organization an online business.

Online business integration consists of 3 basic ways:

#1. Component Oriented Development

Limited communication between applications happens via a small set of interfaces in order to isolate applications from each other and remain stable even as applications change. Components interact with the program to program communication using interfaces in the modular development paradigm and are able to encapsulate business logic.

#2. Synchronization and Data Consistency

The main aim of data consistency is to obtain facts from multiple systems. A different mechanism is used to synchronize data between multiple systems that are divided into two parts:

Data Movement: Move data between different systems is a way of synchronization itself. Many companies use manually to transfer data between systems such as FTP and data replication technology.

Data Access: Keeping data in one place and accessing it from multiple heterogeneous applications eliminates the necessity to synchronize data while moving it between different systems.

#3. Message Oriented Development

A new generation of middleware technology is emerging as automation of business processes increases, which is based on asynchronous communication. The basic aim of messaging is to isolate information providers so that application can be dropped, changed or added without affecting another system. It enables business processes and applications to communicate from one application to other by sending a message.

Conclusion

A proper integration of various processes in your online business helps in cost savings, increases the bility to scale operations and improves customer experience considerably. Also, in addition to increasing sales, an effective integration will provide a better work environment to your employees.

]]>https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/2018/03/14/smart-ways-to-integrate-your-online-business/feed05 Out-Of-The-Box Strategies to Increase Profits for Your Small Businesshttps://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2018/03/05/5-out-of-the-box-strategies-to-increase-profits-for-your-small-business
https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2018/03/05/5-out-of-the-box-strategies-to-increase-profits-for-your-small-business#respondMon, 05 Mar 2018 11:28:32 +0000http://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/?p=35559Being an entrepreneur, your goal is to make use of every opportunity to increase profits for your business.

]]>Profit is the most significant aspect of any business, for there is no point in running a business that isn’t earning profits. However, starting a business doesn’t necessarily result in immediate gains, what is important though is entrepreneurs have to constantly evolve their strategies and apply best practices to cross a bottom line.

As a budding entrepreneur, you have to keep your options open, pluck low-hanging fruits and find ways to increase profitability; while at the same time you have to manage your finances and cash flow.

How are you going to do that?

Well! In order to succeed and make it big in the marketplace, you have to think out-of-the-box. One way of doing this is to identify your key profit drivers, and developing strategies around them with minimal costs.

Here is how you can implement some effective tactics to gain profits.

#1. Increase Your Operational Excellence

Your journey of growth has a strong foundation in your operational excellence, which means different procedural steps for different industries. For some, operational excellence is achieved by lowering operating cost or reduced inventory, while for others it is increased efficiency and better quality. The point is simple – you have to incorporate a process of improvement in the business activities being conducted at the workplace.

Better operational excellence invariably ensures that all your employees are groomed in such a way that they remain positive, motivated and empowered while going about their tasks. With this continuous improvement process, there is a greater chance of sustaining operations of your business because of increased efficiency and productivity of your workforce. This approach has three distinct advantages – you are improving your product, service or process; reducing costs over time; and improving customer satisfaction.

#2. Use A Better Pricing Strategy

Using smart pricing tactics is a must to succeed in a competitive marketplace. There are many aspects to price management. The most prominent ones are – achieving the optimal price for each product or service; and managing your product mix or services to achieve the optimal price for a set of customer transactions. After segmenting your customers and understanding which ones are truly price sensitive, a basic price range will meet their needs without disrupting your full product line.

It is therefore important to offer high-end products as well as low-end ones to cover the entire range of customers. While the bulk of your sales are generating from low to middle end, the highest margins will naturally tend to be your higher priced items. For example, you want to nudge your customers to buy item A since it is giving you the highest margin. If you put a similar price of item A as the rest of items in the same category, then item A would simply not stand out. You rather price the other items very high and place them right next to the item A, and then the latter would be perceived as the best bargain.

#3. Use Social Media To Your Advantage

Today, consumer shopping behavior has changed drastically. More and more people are using mobile devices and social media to interact with brands. This has paved the way for businesses to use this opportunity to their advantage. With key social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc, you can also turn the tide in your favor and boost immediate revenues. According to emarketer study, 50% of small business owners in the United States use social media as their main digital marketing tactic because it helps them connecting with new customers.

To begin with, social media efforts should be designed around your website. For that, you should create your Facebook page first. Facebook advertising today has become a highly effective strategy for acquiring new customers; while for eCommerce, Facebook Exchange is particularly effective in reducing shopping cart abandonment.

Besides Facebook, other social media channels are also catching up fast. Pinterest, for example, has introduced buyable pins; Twitter has a “Buy Now” button; Instagram has easy to sell platform via ads; while posting engaging videos in YouTube can give you huge dividends. Social media also helps you get personal with your audience and genuine engagements with them will lead to long-term relationships.

#4. Use Unique Discounting Strategies

It is a well-established fact that discounting increases sales. Not only that, discounts or loyalty offers (as some marketers like to call them) help move your stocks, attract new customers, and complete sales targets during a slow sales period. However, you need to proceed with caution if you decide to discount. In order to successfully run discounting, you should know your profit margin and breakeven point.

There are many ways by which you can use your discounting strategies. For example, discount codes and coupons can be immensely beneficial for your business. They create shopper loyalty, bring new customers, promote newly-launched products and encourage first-time product trials.

Secondly, you can give a stipulated amount of cash back offer on certain items to your customers. While many customers find this as an effective bargain, you are also encouraging them to use cash back credit cards that can provide them the simplest way in keeping their money in the bank; thus, providing the good value to their hard-earned money.

Thirdly, you can use seasonal discounts for out-of-season items. That way you are giving them the “best value” option while increasing demand and sales throughout the year because it aims to drive impulse purchases. Another type of discount specifically for eCommerce businesses is free shipping. The main advantage of free shipping is it reduces cart abandonment. However, you should make free shipping available only when the order reaches a certain amount.

#5. Use Referrals And Affiliate Programs

Referrals are increasingly becoming crucial components of a successful sales strategy. So word-of-mouth referrals are an easy, viral and effective way of increasing profits. If a customer actively talks about your product or service and brings prospects to the door that is no less than a magic referral. To that effect, magic referrals are the ones that offer instant credibility. Referrals are not automatic. Some just happen but most happen because you do something to trigger them. You have to learn to ask your customers, albeit by phrasing it in the form of some kind of help. Why so? Because people love to help other people, especially when they already know them.

Another major strategy you can use to boost sales is to utilize affiliates in your industry to promote your products. You can do this by targeting your most influential customers. Not only do affiliates market your products or services effectively, they also shield you from the competitors. If you have enough affiliates in your niche, it makes it harder for competitors to gain market share.

Final Thoughts

Being an entrepreneur, your goal is to make use of every opportunity to increase profits for your business. But out-of-the-box thinking will rather help you create opportunities for yourself to grow as well as use unique strategies to make your business thrive.

]]>The opportunities being provided by eCommerce to businesses today is unprecedented. There is a huge potential for startups that are capable of leveraging eCommerce platforms. But the pertinent question that emerges here is: How to tap this potential properly?

If you have just started an eCommerce business, there are several tactics at your disposal for achieving success in this domain. However, there is no particular roadmap for doing this since eCommerce differs from conventional selling quite a lot. Therefore what finally matters for making it big in eCommerce business is summed up in the following important points.

#1. Optimize for mobile and maintain a strong desktop presence

Although mobile revolution has swept the world, the desktop still leads smartphone organic search traffic, which accounts for 57% of total eCommerce traffic. This just because consumers still want to collect information with regards to products and services on their desktop computers; which is why website owners have to maintain a profound presence in this market. However, you cannot underrate the smartphone phenomenon since it is extremely desirable to understand searcher’s requirements. Therefore Google is preferring mobile-first indexing for continuously improving the user experience.

The fact is today mobile is receiving the same number of clicks as desktops and tablets. This was possible because of the improvement in mobile technology along with users’ familiarity of using them. According to Deloitte, 58% of consumers owning a smartphone have already used it for store-related shopping. More and more people are downloading mobile apps to receive a discount. Hence, personalization and optimization of mobile becomes imperative for you. Thus, failing to anticipate and adapt to these changes could mark the beginning of the downfall of eCommerce. At the same time you should not forget to have a good desktop-oriented website also, which will always be better than a poorly performing or broken mobile site.

#2. Use powerful emotional triggers in your ads

A strategic use of psychology can be extremely helpful for you in increasing eCommerce conversions. For that, you should use the right triggers in your ads that will create a strong appeal to your target audiences. But how should you choose the right phrases as well as calls to action?

As a matter of fact, highly successful eCommerce websites incorporate certain campaigns in order to attract the attention of their customers. For example, they tend to point out free delivery options in their ads. It turned out that companies use guarantee related phrases because guarantee provided by online stores is highly valued by shoppers.

Also, if your phrases create a sense of urgency, you are more able to compel your customers to perform the desired action. To make your calls to action more catchy and persuasive, you should use the terms like “Now” and “Today”. The most frequently used CTA, therefore, is “Shop Now”. Hence, while creating your next ad campaign, try to act on peoples’ feelings and strengthen your message with proper terms and phrases.

#3. Leverage social media

For eCommerce businesses, social media is a formidable avenue for advertising. Therefore, you should also take advantage of the reach of social media for finding potential customers. The emergence and expansion of influencer marketing have also allowed eCommerce companies to start their buyers’ journey on popular social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Companies are using massive advertising budgets on videos that demand viewers’ attention. Thus, with this, they are able to generate significant revenue.

Social media is all about building a relationship with your customer first and then selling them on your product or service. To do this, you need to focus on sharing helpful information and establishing trust before you even try to make a sale.

The platforms like Twitters, Facebook and YouTube are increasingly becoming crucial for interacting with followers and customers. These platforms help you monitor their posts to engage with them on a daily basis. You can use tools like Narrow.io, Hootsuite, Buffer that will help you increase followers and manage social media posts and engagements. Thus, if you have successfully increased your followers to thousands, you can also sell them your products or services.

#4. Use POS software for sales

The manner in which point of sale software is being used today is quite significant. Once you are in the business of eCommerce, it becomes all the more important to track usage and analyze inventory levels on an item-by-item basis. Gone are the days of using old cash registers; eCommerce retailers are moving toward leaner systems that operate on tablets and smartphones, where cashiers are enabled to input your products, tally the cost, and conduct the financial transaction. That is why you need an inexpensive and easy-to-use point of sale solution. Good POS software allows you to improve pricing accuracy by integrating bar-code scanners and credit card authorizations.

There are many POS software systems that enable you to use add-on devices at your check-out stations. Many smaller retailers are moving away from traditional POS systems toward cloud based point of sale solutions. Furthermore, POS packages come with integrated accounting modules including general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, purchasing, and inventory control systems. Hence, it can be concluded that a POS system is an all-in-one way to keep track of your business’s cash flow.

#5. Extraordinary website design and enhanced security

Having a trustworthy website is very important today; with the increased rates of phishing scams, or even a poor customer service, consumers are much more wary of their clicks. Since you are running an online store where a transaction is taking place, you should be actively aware of how your business and websites are perceived.

To begin with, having a strong design makes a big difference. Consider this: you are walking down a street and looking for a place to eat something. Would you go into a restaurant with cracked windows? Or would you like to go into one that has attractive décor? The same principle is applicable to your online storefront, and there is no excuse for having a poorly designed website as far as eCommerce is concerned.

You need to also make sure that your website is up-to-date. Be sure that all of the information on your website in regards to shipping, contact information, product information and more is all up to date. Furthermore, your website should be safe with increased privacy and security. For that, you need a profound cloud hosting service that will add an element of trust to your business.

Conclusion

There is an overwhelming competition in the eCommerce landscape today. Setting up an online storefront is not the biggest challenge, but achieving a growth curve is. The above important points will help you achieve and sustain growth.

]]>The manner in which virtual reality is impacting today’s world; it is no longer a virtual concept – it is a reality now. It is disrupting the technological landscape in a big way and emerging as one of the most important inventions of the 21st century. From realistic training simulations to interactive learning environments to even 3D holographic communication, these VR trends have immense potential to transform the world that we see today.

Virtual reality’s ability to offer countless solutions has made it a highly profitable and lucrative proposition for businesses. A recent study states in no less clear terms that the virtual reality market is expected to reach $26.95 billion by 2022 – which is currently valued just over $2 billion – with a growth rate of 54% per year from 2017 onwards. Another report from Sketchfab provides a comprehensive overview of VR Industry, which reveals 83.2% of the surveyed population has experienced VR in some capacity. This is certainly the most positive curve in the journey of virtual reality.

Along with VR, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) technologies are destined to revolutionize the tech world. Many technological giants aren’t also shying away to show their sweet-tooth for virtual reality. Facebook is coming up with a standalone virtual reality headset, “Oculus Go” in order to turn it into a mass-market phenomenon. Amazon, on the other hand, is assembling a team to create a virtual-reality (VR) platform for “immersive storytelling”. In addition to that, software development companies, advertising and marketing firms and eCommerce businesses are utilizing VR technology in one way or the other.

Here are five trends that will prove to be most impactful in coming days:

#1. Increased immersive experience

The only senses that have been associated with virtual reality until now were vision and sound. It’s time to go beyond them and explore ways to provide more immersive experience. In light of this, a serious progress is being made in order to involve other senses. Many industry experts have already started working to develop gadgets that will provide sensory experiences like touch and smell.

This is precisely why “Oculus Rift” had been making waves with their advanced headsets, which prompted Facebook to acquire the company in 2014. Furthermore, Gannet, an American technology firm is specialized in developing immersive contents that enable users to live the stories as first persons. Therefore, it is not surprising to learn that there will be more innovative VR tools we are going to witness ahead.

#2. Gaming is going to get a huge boost

The gaming industry has made a significant advancement in the past decade; VR technology is only going to give it a huge shot in the arm. Developers are creating 3D simulations for the ultimate gaming experience that will be felt much like living objects are teleported from r the al world into the console. It will be a path-breaking achievement, especially for gamers as they could visit an alien world/exotic location or could perform things that can’t be possible otherwise.

“Nosulus Rift” is one such VR game that uses sensors activated through inaudible sound waves, which in turn creates a sense of fart smell. Each time the player activates sensors, an odor’s puff is triggered. Moreover, “Pokemon Go” has been a great success of augmented reality gaming, which switches between an augmented world and a fantasy world.

#3. Dramatic transformation of healthcare industry

Virtual reality has a promising future in healthcare industry, which can provide life-saving solutions in order to overhaul the patient-physician experience. A great progress has already been made in this regard by using VR to simulate surgery, treat phobias and signify the diagnosis process. The following VR trends can transform the healthcare sector:

Hands-on experience in medical education: VR technology can effectively be used to promote real-life hands-on experience to medical students with the help of instructional instructors. This approach will decrease students’ anxiety along with increasing their experience in a virtual setting.

Improved patient monitoring during surgery: VR technology can be used to create a virtual environment without a single point of focus in order to effectively monitor and observe serious patients.

Virtual reality as a pain killer: VR can be used for incorporating alternative treatment. There have been successful experiments in addressing acute pain through distraction. It has a huge potential for patient relaxation, assessment and treatment of post traumatic stress disorder.

More detailed medical imaging: The EchoPixel 3D technology is gradually impacting the medical world by converting ultrasound, CT scan and MRI images into 3D format. These detailed images in turn provide medical practitioners greater understanding of human body and diseases.

#4. VR shopping in real-time

E-commerce is on the verge of creating history thanks to virtual reality, and we are going to see radical changes in this industry. An appropriate example of this is shoppers will be able to try on clothes while staying at home. Developers are preparing to create a unique experience that will allow consumers to download and print a 3D mould to ensure that the clothes are comfortable and fit. In addition to that, the evolving VR technology is going to make way for the implementation of improved sensory devices, customers will be able to test smells and flavors in order to purchase items.

In view of this, Facebook 360 allows users to navigate 360 degrees – an innovative way to try on makeup through their smartphones. Google cardboard, on the other hand, provides low-cost solution that is going to transform smartphones into headsets, which can prove a profound leap in e-commerce business.

#5. Travel and tourism are going to stand out

Virtual reality can equally disrupt travel and tourism sector. Picture this: a new technology comes that creates an experience which virtually teleports a person and makes him to believe that he is somewhere else – a place where he has been longing to visit. This is not a scene from a sci-fi movie, not even a distant reality; it is very much in the offing where families can be virtually present at destinations they are seeking.

This trend can serve one more purpose for travel and tourism businesses in that users can immerse themselves in new travel destinations, possibly increasing their interest in actually visiting them. Moreover, VR technology can be boon for hotels and their guests because it can potentially provide them information as well as entertainment. They can get information regarding local points of interest along with the picturesque glimpses of great nearby destinations.

The Road Ahead

The above trends notwithstanding, much of the impacts of the virtual reality have been chiefly on gaming, filmmaking and other forms of entertainment. However, the future seems completely loaded with its insurmountable possibilities. A good example is its ability to become the new-age computing platform.

According to some experts, Nanotech VR can be used in the future that will push human boundaries to the next level and allow us enter into the digital realm. This technology will superimpose us on the virtual environment where our brain will be uploaded into computer system or network.

Until a few years ago, 3D movies were a distant dream, but they are commonplace now. We certainly don’t know which new technology is going to surprise us, but virtual reality has traversed an impressive path so far, and also has a long way to go ahead.

]]>https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/2017/12/21/virtual-reality-disruption-5-powerful-vr-trends-that-will-shape-2018-and-beyond/feed1Smart Ecommerce Apps That Inspire Consumers to Make a Purchasehttps://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2017/10/25/smart-ecommerce-apps-that-inspire-consumers-to-make-a-purchase
https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2017/10/25/smart-ecommerce-apps-that-inspire-consumers-to-make-a-purchase#respondWed, 25 Oct 2017 18:00:23 +0000http://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/?p=34221Since, smartphones and tablets have completely changed the picture of eCommerce landscape, consumers are using eCommerce apps more than ever.

]]>Ecommerce is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. With the advent of deep internet outreach and increased use of mobile phones all over the world, the eCommerce market has shifted to the digital space. This has made eCommerce business highly ubiquitous in the present scenario, which is spreading in the developing countries unprecedentedly, as well as in developed nations.

Since, smartphones and tablets have completely changed the picture of eCommerce landscape, consumers are using eCommerce apps more than ever.

Due to the growing utility of e-commerce apps, consumers want more features to be embedded in them. The following features are most prominent ones that are capable of delivering great user experience:

#1. Customization and Flexibility

Better user experience is the most important feature that consumers need in an eCommerce app, which means a greater degree of customizability and flexibility. It is therefore, vital for businesses to make their apps’ user experience engaging and interactive. It essentially means the key customizable features should align with user needs and preferences.

#2. Augmented Reality

Virtual/augmented reality has a very promising future, which we have only seen it in gaming and entertainment industry. But, what if customers are using this technology to get best shopping experience? It has the capability of changing the e-commerce business forever. Consumers could even freely pick try luxury class items while sitting at home bringing real life experiences in shopping. This is one of the important e-commerce metrics for businesses to ponder upon for future online shopping.

#3. Voice Search

Voice search is going to be highly convenient for customers. This feature helps people in shopping even while they are involved in other activities. Since, it is easier to talk than type, especially when you do not have enough time, voice search will be highly beneficial for customers. Moreover, the voice search feature could also be helpful in collecting customer reviews as no one likes to type lengthy feedbacks.

#4. Simple And Fast Navigation

Due to the limited space of mobile display screens, it should be kept in mind by the app developers that its content should not cram up on the device. So, it is crucial that the design should be seamless and easy to navigate. It should display brands and products in the most impressive fashion. The best solution for this is a responsive design of the app.

#5. Push Notifications

The eCommerce apps having push notifications are proving to be the most successful ones. This is a highly engaging feature that generates an immediate action on the part of users. This feature works well with time-sensitive marketing strategies such as exclusive promotions, special offers, and new product launches.

Most Trending Ecommerce Apps in 2017

People today are spending more time on their mobile phones to carry out various online shopping activities like requesting, purchasing and booking. Almost all the products and services are available on the online platform and are utilized by consumers through mobile e-commerce apps. There is no surprise with the fact that these e-commerce apps are proving to be a win-win proposition for both businesses and consumers equally.

Some of the most prominent and innovative e-commerce apps that are capable of swaying consumers’ purchasing decisions are described as follows:

Wanelo

Wanelo is a complete shopping app that promotes itself as a “digital mall on your phone” by stating that consumers can find over 550,000 stores including big and small brands. It has over 8 million registered users. Interestingly, the name Wanelo is a shorter version of Want. Need. Love. The consumers share photos and information regarding various products on their shopping wish-list. You can buy almost everything you see on Wanelo. This app is especially popular among teenagers who use Android as well iOS mobile devices. The iOS version consistently ranks in the App Store’s Top 50 list for lifestyle apps.

The Hunt

The Hunt is a fashion app consisting of an online community that helps in tracking down the items you crave. The users post a picture of products they are looking for and get personalized shopping suggestions. If you happen to use this app, you will get an opportunity to show your fashion and style skills and recommend attractive accessories to others. So, the user generated product photos is increasingly becoming a strong tactic to increase conversion rates. Moreover, if the users post their photos with their products that they have been tracking down, this encourages further purchases.

Best Buy

Consider this, if you have to purchase a new device, gadget or computer but are unaware as to which brand would be most trustworthy. You have two options – you either sweat yourself out and run out of patience or use Best Buy app. Its features like QR product scanning, bar code scanning, genuine customer reviews, and reward redemption are very useful in finding the right product for you. This app engages and educates its users about a variety of products, especially electronics devices. You can also text or call the experts and know whether there are special deals and offers.

Spring

Spring is a multi-brand shopping app that provides a compelling buying experience to users. It offers a range of photo feed of products that you want to purchase just like Instagram. It has a passionate and curated community of brands, which includes luxury products as well as emerging designers. Using this app, you can explore products that have been recommended by influencers and editors. It doesn’t have a shopping cart and you can buy beneath an item to buy it. After the purchase, the sellers can send them push notifications.

In Conclusion

The increasing demand for smartphones has a direct bearing on the development and usage of e-commerce apps. Everyone from single moms to students to affluent society people is finding these apps very useful, which can help them save time, money and physical efforts. They are able to make faster purchases, get better customer experience, and use convenient shopping options. In addition to that, the intuitive features of these apps like notifications, purchase options, personalization, comparison, and analytics are certainly inspiring consumers along with changing their buying habits.

]]>https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2017/10/25/smart-ecommerce-apps-that-inspire-consumers-to-make-a-purchase/feed0How to Double Your Profit with Great Brandinghttps://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2017/04/24/how-to-double-your-profit-with-great-branding
https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2017/04/24/how-to-double-your-profit-with-great-branding#respondMon, 24 Apr 2017 06:00:06 +0000http://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/?p=32312A great branding strategy can increase your company's value, making it easier to get customers and giving your employees the motivation to achieve your mission and vision.

]]>If you’re like most small businesses out there, you’re worried about how to distinguish yourself from the competition, let alone how to double your profits. You can achieve both goals with one strategy: great branding. While a beautifully rendered logo is a big part of branding, a great branding strategy can increase your company’s value, making it easier to get customers and giving your employees the motivation to achieve your mission and vision.

What is great branding?

Your brand is a lot of things: how customers perceive your company, your logo and advertising, a catchy tagline, how you deliver customer service, and your reputation. When these areas flow together seamlessly, with each supporting the others, your company will be healthy. But let one area slip, and it damages your entire brand.

Great branding tells your customers what they can expect from your company. What is your unique selling proposition? Are you the lowest priced or are you the best quality? Are you a new-to-market innovator and disrupter, or do you have a long track record of exceeding customers’ expectations? You can’t be everything to everyone, so you need to make certain you know who you are and what you want to be before you turn your attention to devising your brand strategy.

Most importantly, a strong brand identity is a top asset for your small business. It’s what will hep you double your profits.

There are several ways branding can grow your business. Here are the top 5

#1. Focus your efforts.

#2. Differentiate your company.

Because a really great brand strategy laser-focuses your efforts, you learn quickly what sets you apart from the competition. You learn what you do differently, how to lean on your key strengths, and how best to serve your customers.

#3. Build customer-centric messages.

Without a great brand strategy, your marketing messages may be all over the place. The easiest way to build a loyal following is to build a great brand message that focuses on your customers’ needs and wants and sets your product or service up as the solution.

#4. Consistently attract customers.

A great branding strategy combines your logo, website, marketing materials, advertising, and even how your customer service representatives talk to customers into a single consistent message. You want that message to convey you’re a market leader.

#5. Save time and money.

When you nail a great brand strategy, you spend less time educating potential customers about who you are and what you’re best at and more time helping them solve their problems. And when you can solve your customers’ problems, you’ve created brand advocates.

Great branding lets you control your pricing

Think about all the iconic brands out there — Nike, L.L. Bean, Apple, Amazon, and many more — that heavily control their pricing. They set the bar, and their brand strategy elevates their products in consumers’ minds. When you’re unique and desirable in your positioning, you can control your product’s price. Consider the crowds that will stand in line for hours for the launch of a new iPhone.

Do you have a favorite brand of toilet paper, breakfast cereal, running shoes, etc., that you’ll buy even if it’s not on sale? If so, you’re a brand advocate. You want that same experience for your company’s customers. Your brand strategy sets the tone for what makes your product unique and desirable, and your marketing, sales, and customer service back up your promises.

Consider companies on the stock exchange that are valued at several times their assets. They all have excellent brand strategies. You can consider your brand strategy an investment in your company’s future, and the better you do it, the better your ROI.

How to develop your brand strategy

First, get a solid picture of who you are as a company, what your mission is, and for what you want to be known. This takes some soul searching and the collaboration of your top employees.

Sit down as a team and define your company’s mission and the benefits you offer customers. Then answer the following questions:

If you don’t know the answer to the first question, do some research and find out what people actually think. Guessing at this point won’t help you develop a great brand strategy. You need to know specifics.

After you have a solid picture of who and what you are as a company, follow these tips to build an excellent brand strategy that will get your company noticed.

#1. Have a high quality logo developed.

This can sometimes be restrictive financially for small businesses, but there are excellent alternatives out there to hiring an expensive designer.

#2. Create a memorable tagline.

This is a few, short words that sum up your company’s benefits to customers and prospects or what you want to be known for. Think of Nike: Just do it.

#3. Document your messaging.

Every employee should know the key messages that customers and prospects should hear with every touch point. This includes your brand’s “voice.” Are you a casual, conversational brand that speaks in friendly ways, or are you a more of a luxury brand with a formal tone?

#4. Develop your marketing collateral.

If you use print advertising or have packaging for your products, the color schemes, look, and feel of every item must be the same. Place your logo in the same spot on each piece of marketing collateral so that everything paints the same picture: your brand is solid and trustworthy.

#5. Extend your branding to every aspect of your business.

Make sure how employees answer the phone is consistent with your brand’s message. You want your sales people to dress a certain way that represents your brand perfectly, and you should incorporate your logo and colors into your email signatures. Every touch with a prospect or customer should incorporate your brand.

#6. Consistently deliver on your promises to customers.

The best branding strategy is backed up by consistently meeting or exceeding customers’ expectations. If you don’t consistently deliver on your promises, your brand strategy will fail.

Final thoughts

Branding is about finding out what makes your company stand out from the crowd and playing to those strengths in everything you do. When each touch point along the customer experience includes strong brand messages, you’ll generate a buzz that is the most profitable marketing source available: word of mouth.

Today’s profitable companies, small or large, rank in the top of their industries for one reason—they’ve built a strong brand.

Let us know in the comments below your best branding tips. It’s always great to hear how others are successfully employing brand strategies that positively affect the bottom line.

]]>In today’s highly interconnected world, information sharing has found its new meaning in the form of cloud computing. It refers to an advanced model that enables every device connected to the network to share a vast pool of configurable computing resources. These resources may include internet, applications, servers so on and so forth.

Effectively the central idea behind the need for cloud computing is enhanced interconnectivity through a significantly secure network. As a result, there is a more rapid communication around the world with greater security. Cloud computing has other relevant aspects such as wireless connectivity through mobiles, tablets and other personalized devices, which means the data is no more confined to a single network.

Salesforce AppExchange is a similar cloud computing platform through which users can have instant access to software products and services. It offers a wide range of apps that provide industry solutions in various fields such as medium and small businesses, customer services, education, medicine, manufacturing and real estate. Salesforce AppExchange, being one of the largest cloud computing marketplaces also offers custom developed applications where one can build, customize and develop Salesforce applications.

The overwhelming presence of Salesforce AppExchange is evident by the fact that it has over 2,800 apps that are dedicatedly providing services in their respective specific fields.

Here are 5 of the most potent Salesforce apps that are worth considering:

#1. InsideView – for social selling

The InsideView’s social selling approach is clinical in nature as it delivers the right message to the right person. It uses sales intelligence by extensively analyzing your social network connections. The updating and importing features of InsideView are very robust, which immediately helps in updating your Salesforce database. In terms of efficacy, it allows you to monitor more than 25,000 sources for the purpose of acquiring sales intelligence, which is vital for new product releases, business mergers etc to stay ahead than your competitors. One of the important features of InsideView is “People Alerts” that provides valuable information by tracking activities from different social media profiles.

#2. Adobe EchoSign

Arguably the most used app from Salesforce AppExchange, Adobe EchoSign is utilized as a global electronic signature service that helps users to acquire document signatures from any mobile devices wherever they are located. The app is quicker and much easier to set up and configure. It is relatively easy to use so much so that it doesn’t require prior technical knowledge.

As, against the traditional processes, Adobe EchoSign is extremely efficient and faster in terms of closing business deals. All you need to do is use SalesForce credentials and straightaway send the documents out for signature. The recipients on the flipside can easily view and sign the documents or contracts in just a few clicks. Therefore in simple words, Adobe EchoSign can easily send, track and manage contracts.

#3. Cirrus Insight

It is one of the topmost SalesForce AppExchange Apps that allows the users to connect Gmail, Outlook, Office 365, iPad as well as Android with SalesForce. Every time a user sends emails from his Gmail account, SalesForce doesn’t log them from its native integration because it is impractical for everyday use. In that case your Gmail account should be logged in whenever you have to send an email. Cirrus Insight, therefore, removes this difficulty from your workflow.

Cirrus Insight’s Email Sync is a powerful feature that allows the users to save their emails to the appropriate client record along with the attachments. It also saves and tracks emails to SalesForce. Apart from that the Email Sync feature creates and edits SalesForce records right from your Gmail account.

#4. Agile Accelerator

The Agile Accelerator is the app that is a combination of various popular frameworks put together by SalesForce. It is essentially a tool that is specifically designed for agile development, which consolidates Scrum, QA and bug tracking into a single a single interface known as Grand Unified System (GUS). Moreover the Agile Accelerator is helpful in following ways:

– It efficiently uses drag and drop tools to manage backlogs and sprints.

– It smoothly collaborates with cross-functional teams with the help of Chatter.

#5. Informatica Cloud Integration

For the successive five years, Informatica Cloud Integration app has been the topmost integration solution application on SalesForce AppExchange. Informatica Cloud is very potent and allows the users to easily connect to a variety of cloud, on-premises and mobile with an aim of efficiently sharing your relevant information. It is specifically designed to meet the needs of data integration for multiple users.

Informatica Cloud Integration looks beyond point-to-point integration by offering a complete suite of applications. The application is essentially an integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), which is best suited for engaging with the customers and realizing the potential of your SalesForce investment.

#6. Jitterbit Cloud Data Loader

Jitterbit Cloud Data Loder is not just highest rated app on the SalesForce AppExchange but it is also the topmost choice of organizations that need easy to handle yet formidable data loading solution for the purpose of connecting SalesForce to any database. Jitterbit significantly reduces time and effort, which are required for automating imports and exports. This application was specifically designed for SalesForce administrators that greatly reduces the burden on IT resources.

It is considered as a robust data-migration and manipulation tool built for SalesForce platform in order to connect with external databases and documents. The databases which Jitterbit helps in connecting with SalesForce are MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle Database, CSV files, XLS/XLSX and TSV files.

#7. AscentERP

AscentERP is also among the top rated apps from SalesForce AppExchange, which offers a set of complete sales order and inventory management software. This app is specifically designed for manufacturing and production industries. The advance production features of this application are helpful in reducing the inventory mistakes. It allows in maintaining a centralized repository for all the items and product related information. The items can be tracked by their serial numbers.

AscentERP also allows you to create, receive, allocate and confirm purchase orders. It is easy to incorporate tractability for shipped orders with the help of AscentERP along with the ability to manage drop ship or blanket orders.

With the success of data-driven apps in SalesForce AppExchange, it can now be expected that the enterprise cloud enabled ecosystem app will be growing similarly. The experts have every reason to believe that SalesForce will boost AppExchange revenues at least 5 times over the period of next 5 years. However, listing the apps in AppExchange is not the final step; they should be regularly updated and improved to make relevant as per the changing needs.